Sympathy for the Enemy
by idontknowanything
Summary: What makes someone evil? We always feel sympathy for the trials the hero survives, but what about the bad guy? Should we feel some sympathy for the enemy? (One chapter Voldemort angst)


Disclaimer: I do not own the characters or anything else in this story. All things belong to J.K. Rowling  
  
A/N: I know I should be working on my other story, but I was suddenly in the mood to do a little bit of non-romantic angst (and my other story is completely a romantic-comedy), and this little idea just wouldn't leave me alone. I came up with the idea while thinking about what makes people evil. I agree completely with the idea that it is the choices we make that determines our course, but what factor might environment play? Especially on someone as evil as Voldemort.  
  
Summary: What makes someone evil? We always feel sympathy for the trials the hero survives, but what about the bad guy? Should we feel sympathy for the enemy?  
  
Sympathy for the Enemy  
  
My name is Tom Marvolo Riddle, and I am the last of the Slytherin line. I was born many years ago in a little English village to a beautiful witch who happened to be a direct descendant of Salizar Slytherin himself. My father was a muggle, a spoiled, rich young man who had become obsessed with the most beautiful girl in his small village. He married her because that was the only way he could have her, and promptly got her pregnant before he found out her horrible secret. This spoiled young man was unable to handle anything out of the ordinary, and reacted with revulsion to his new wife and unborn child, because she was a witch.  
  
That is how I came to be, so very long ago. My mother named me Tom Riddle, after my good-for-nothing father, and we proceeded to live the first 7 years of my life in poverty in that little English village. My mother would often speak of my father, and rant to me about how horrible and awful the man was. She would often lock me in a small broom closet when I did something bad, and she would always tell me that I was bad because I had so much of my evil muggle father in me. Often my mother would leave me for days at a time in the tiny closet, but she would always hug me and tell me about how the punishment had purged the evil muggle out of me during my time spent in the dark, enclosed closet.  
  
In the summer of my 7th year, my life changed forever. My mother was killed by a muggle in a bank robbery. She was hit by a stray bullet one of the thieves shot at the security guard. I'll never forget the day the police came to tell me the news. The muggle, an old man who smelled like stale cigars and whiskey, just told me that my mother was dead as he picked me up from the muggle grammar school. Then he said he was taking me to my father.  
  
This was probably the most shocking thing I had learned that day. You see, I never knew my father was still alive until that moment in time. My mother had always told me that my stupid muggle father was dead. So, I sat in the police car staring with sightless eyes out the window as the police officers drove me through town, to the biggest house in the village.  
  
I have vague memories of being helped out of the car by the cigar smelling police man. I remember pausing to look up at the huge house in front of me, as the police man hurried me along. But I was a tough child, not given to silly emotions or fits of crying, so I followed along as we walked to the door. The police officer knocked, and we waited for the door to open. It seemed like it took forever, until an older muggle man with gray hair opened the door. We were ushered in to a small drawing room, where the police officer and I sat and waited.  
  
After about ten minutes, a younger man dressed in a suit and tie came in to the room. He looked to be about 30, and he was very handsome, with dark hair and dark eyes. It is the face that I have seen many times when looking in the mirror. He saw me sitting there, still dressed in my school clothes, and recognition dawned in his eyes. He asked the officer what "the little freak brat" was doing there, and the officer explained to him that I had no where else to go. The man told the police officer to "take that freak anywhere but here" as we were ushered out of the house.  
  
That was how I ended up at the orphanage. I was just one of many unwanted children. I had never had a chance to be adopted, as I was known as the "freak" who somehow had strange accidents occurring all around him. But that was fine with me. It wasn't like I wanted any of those stupid muggle families adopting me.  
  
When I was 11, I received a letter inviting me to go to school at Hogwart's. I was so happy to be getting out of that horrible muggle place and to finally be able to go be with my kind of people. And Hogwart's was wonderful. I was sorted into Slytherin house, and proceeded to find out all about my wizarding heritage on my mum's side. I was only at Hogwart's for 3 months when I found out about my antecedents. I was so proud to be a direct descendent of Salizar Slytherin.  
  
I started researching everything I could about my great, great, great, great, etc. grandfather. He was the best of all the four founders. He knew that muggles were inferior to wizards and that mudbloods shouldn't be admitted to Hogwart's. Muggles were completely undeserving of the honor of learning magic, and Salizar knew it. I had also discovered about the Chamber of Secrets, and discovering where this was became my new mission.  
  
That first year at Hogwart's, I made many friends. All of my friends were pure blooded wizards, and I carefully guarded the secret of my origins. I knew that I had left any of the muggle in me behind in that closet long ago. My mum had even told me so, every time she left me out. My friends and I spent a lot of our time teasing all the mudblood and squib students in the school. All of those ones who should never have been admitted, as they were tainting the school and the wizarding world with their very existence.  
  
After spending years searching for the chamber, I had finally found it in my 6th year at Hogwarts. What I discovered in the chamber was a Basilisk, that only I could control. I opened the chamber, and that whiney mudblood, Myrtle something-or-other died, and I had to close it again. I had the blame placed on Hagrid, that stupid half-breed oaf, and the school was not closed. I could not accept the school being closed, because I had promised myself I would never go back to that muggle orphanage ever again.  
  
I started using the name Lord Voldemort around the time of the chamber incident. I began accumulating followers, and we created a group dedicated to ridding the wizarding world of muggle filth. Ah, the fun we had, using dark magic and creating so many muggle torture instruments....  
  
After I finished at Hogwart's, I went to visit my muggle past and killed my muggle father and grandparents. I really never went there with the intention of killing them, I had only originally went there to show them what the "freak" had become. I was let in, and I saw that face again, my face-- only older, with wings of silver in the sides of the dark hair, and this man was calling me a "freak" and telling me to get out. And I felt my hand grabbing my wand, and I heard the words coming out of my mouth....  
  
That was the first time I had killed by my own hand. I guess it was only fitting that I killed the last remnants of Tom Riddle before I went on to fully embrace who I really am. Lord Voldemort is who I am.  
  
I am taking over the wizarding world, with my followers. There is some resistance, but most know that our cause is right. Wizards are superior to muggles, we all know it. But Dumbledore and his followers are resisting.  
  
Now, I am going to put an end to Dumbledore's hope by destroying the child of the prophecy. I look in the mirror as I put on my robes, and again see that face looking back at me. I guess I could not destroy all of Tom Riddle, as he will always be there when I look in a mirror.  
  
Lucius wonders why I have picked the child I have as the one in the prophecy. But deep inside I knew that the full blood wizard wasn't a threat to me. I knew, with all of what little soul I have left, which child would be the biggest threat to me. No matter how hard I try to escape it, every time I look in a mirror, I remember who and what I really am. In the deepest recesses of my mind, in that place where I hide all the thought and feelings I never acknowledge, resides the one truth I can never escape, no matter what I do. I am what I hate.....  
  
*************************************THE END********************************  
  
a/n... This is a short, one chapter story. I think we all know where Voldey is going now, and what happens next..... 


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